We recently updated our list of Top 10 Spanish Restaurants in Singapore and it was brought to our attention that we hadn’t been down to some old Spanish favorites like Dempsey restaurant Don Quijote. In the spirit of transparency, we’ll admit that the restaurant is a client. And though it isn’t as flashy as new players like Catalunya, Esquina, or paella bar BOMBA, we’d done them a disservice by not visiting in a long time. They have, after all, been around for seven years. On this fickle, competitive island, that’s really saying something. (And rents can’t be cheap at Dempsey, so they’re clearly doing something right.)
The restaurant is a warm convivial space with rustic brick walls (on which they display artsy pictures the founders themselves took while travelling through Spain). We headed down for a meal there last week and were duly impressed with their rich comforting oxtail stew ($13), fideua negra (from $30)—a generous pan of noodles cooked with briny squid ink—and flavorful baby spinach, pine nuts and raisins ($16). They’ve also got impressively-sized specials like the charcoal-grilled Tomahawk steaks (each weighing 1.2-2kg).
The recipes were nothing fancy. Don’t expect any molecular techniques here. But they were satisfying and wholesome in a way that trendy tapas rarely are. The restaurant was busy even on a Thursday night and we can see why. The food is the sort of thing you could eat everyday without complaint—reliable and hearty. Our meal there was a good reminder that while it’s all too easy to listen to the people who shout loudest and ignore the places quietly ticking away serving up quality food, that doesn’t mean you should. If folks don’t scream and shout about their food, it might just be because they don’t have to.
